We met in the road natives passing with bundles of cops, or spindles full of cotton thread, and these they were carrying to other parts to be woven into cloth.

The women are the spinners, and the men perform the weaving.

Each web is about 5 feet long, and 15 or 18 inches wide.

The loom is of the simplest construction, being nothing but two beams placed one over the other, the web standing perpendicularly.
The threads of the web are separated by means of a thin wooden lath, and the woof passed through by means of the spindle on which it has been wound in spinning.
The mode of spinning and weaving in Angola, and, indeed, throughout South Central Africa, is so very like the same occupations in the hands of the ancient Egyptians, that I introduce a woodcut from the interesting work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson.

The lower figures are engaged in spinning in the real African method, and the weavers in the left-hand corner have their web in the Angolese fashion.* * Unfortunately, this woodcut can not be represented in this ASCII text.